The TRUTH Behind Disney's Magic Music Days!
by Free Sparrow
Summary: A first hand look at what it's like to be part of a concert band playing at Disney's Magic Music Days, from the point of view of a freshman alto sax player...in other words...me!


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AN: I wrote this recently for a English reflection thing at school, where we had to write a narrative about each of our electives. And..well…here's concert band! I wrote about the period of time before we played our concert at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, with Magic Music Days. I also extended it a bit from when I handed it into school.

…I play alto sax, by the way. Very well, I should add.

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As I dragged myself out of my completely uncomfortable hotel bed in the All-Star Resort in Orlando, I realized all my roomates were gone. Left without me. Thinking I had overslept, I jumped out of bed and ran to get my things, knowing that Mrs. Morger, my chaperone, was really going to let me have it when she saw that I wasn't down at breakfast. I sprinted the length of the entire resort, nearly falling into the pool, and just as I was about to run into the hotel cafeteria, a hand grabbed my arm.

"In a hurry, Jen? Geez. You're not going to be nervous, are you freshman?" Matt Cahill, junior alto sax extraordinare, was grinning down at me, an amused glint in his eye. Anna Kovaliv, a senior, was standing behind him, grinning as well.

"Of course not, Matt. I'm Super Frosh!" I said with a superior grin. Matt laughed loudly. I coughed and addressed Anna. She had the same chaperone as me. "Anna, you seen Mrs. Morger lately?" She nodded, and pointed to a table just outside the doors I had been about to go sprinting through.

"Thanks Anna." I shot a sheepish smile at both of them. "Oh, and Matt, I'm gonna need to steal your tuner at some point, 'k?"

"No problem Jen. See you on the bus!" The two of them walked in the opposite direction, back towards the country music section of the hotel, where the entire band was staying. I walked sheepishly up to Mrs. Morger.

"Uhh…hey…do you have my meal ticket?" She looked up.

"Oh! I was wondering when you were going to get down here. Kristen said you were sleeping when she and Cady left you."

"Yeah, so…uh…can I have my meal ticket? I'm kinda in a hurry…" I motioned back towards the rooms with my hand, hoping she'd get the hint.

"…OH! Yes, the band concert's this morning, isn't it? Well, good luck!" She handed me my meal ticket, and I sprinted back towards the rooms.

I pulled on the tradition black and white of the Souhegan concert band, that we were required to wear. I grabbed my sax and jogged out of my hotel room and down the stairs to find the buses that would take us the few miles to the park. I noticed Mike Stone, a freshman percussionist, ambling along down the path.

"STONER!" I yelled, jogging to catch up with him. "You know where the hell we're supposed to be going?"

"HI Jennifer!" he said, way too cheerily for someone who had just flown into Orlando the day before at 5 in the morning. I stopped walking and smacked him in the arm.

"Stoner, where…are…we…going…????" He sighed and gave in, pointing toward the bus stop where we had been dropped off the day before after our trip from the Orlando airport.

"Took you long enough." I said, with a grin, as I turned around and walked over to the bus stop, and waited for the coach buses to arrive that would take us to our destiny. Or doom.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN…WELCOME TO…**MORDOR!!"**, John Walsh yelled across the coach bus at our half of the band as we crossed over the threshold into Backstage Disney in Orlando, Florida. I laughed loudly, but nervously, and everyone suddenly perked up out of their half-awake, jet-lagged state and looked out the windows, hoping to get a glance of something good, like a character without its costume head on. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. One thought kept running through my mind like a mantra- 'Holy crap. We're finally here. 5 months of work and 800 bucks put into this has come down to this one morning. Put it all on the line.'

Suddenly, the bus pulled to a stop. We quickly unloaded ourselves and all of our instruments, then arranged ourselves into sections to warm up. Within about twenty minutes, we heard someone calling for our attention. A rather overzealous old lady was jumping up and down, trying to get out attention.

Once she had it, she quickly explained how everything was going to work. We were to load our empty cases back under the bus, get back on the bus with our instruments and music, and we would be driven to the stage that we would be playing at in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom. She emphasized that we would have to have on "HAPPY DISNEY SMILES" at all times. We quickly loaded back up onto the buses. I sat down with Shannon Doherty, another sax player, and we quickly played what parts of the songs we could from memory to try and get ourselves in tune. Without tuners. As I ran through a small bit of Estampie, I looked up and saw Kyle, a senior, staring at me. I nodded, and shot him a small grin. He smiled back and continued to work on his solos from Canterbury Chorale.

"Well, obviously…" I muttered, pulling music out of my folder to find a specific section that had proved to be very annoying over the past few months.

Suddenly, the bus pulled to a stop. I looked up, and noticed that I could see the telltale white spires of Space Mountain poking up from behind a rather high fence. We unloaded once again, and got into a line that would make us get onto the stage in the order that we normally sit at concerts. We had to walk across a portion of the area to get behind the stage we were playing on anyway. The leaders of the line took a deep breath, and walked out. All of a sudden, I could hear cheering. Far too loud cheering for the entrance of a high school concert band from a hick town in southern New Hampshire.

Once I was past the barrier and actually _in_ the park, I realized that it was the **ENTIRE** school chorus, all stationed in front of a small purple and silver stage, cheering for us. I grinned at my friends before I ended up behind another barrier, behind the stage. We walked up onto the stage, amid a yell of "REMEMBER YOUR HAPPY DISNEY SMILES!" from Adam, the lone French horn player, and took our seats. I noticed, with some horror, that there was a microphone **_directly_** in front of my seat, point right down at the bell of my alto sax.

"Shannon…you think these are on?" My voice shook as I turned to the sophomore sitting next to me, who was fiddling with her mouthpiece.

"Probably…" I shot her another look of horror, and was about to say something, but was cut off by an announcer-

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"Now, would you all please give a WARM welcome for the Souhegan High School concert band, from Amherst, New Hampshire."

Carl raised his baton with a grin, and the first notes of Procession of the Nobles rang through the loudspeakers. It was then that I realized that I wasn't nervous about this anymore.


End file.
